Chitwood: Reports false about December testing

DAYTONA BEACH -- Reports that Goodyear will get a NASCAR test at Daytona International Speedway in December are premature, track president Joie Chitwood III said.

The sportingnews.com website reported Saturday that Goodyear has requested use of the 2.5-mile tri-oval on Dec. 7-8 as a Speed Weeks prep for NASCAR Sprint Cup Series stock cars.

"They haven't requested anything from me, as much as we'd like to get cars on the track as early as possible," Chitwood said Saturday afternoon.

As the schedule looks right now, the Sprint Cup cars will test Jan. 20-22, while the Grand-Am Rolex Series will hold a sportscar test the first week of January.

International Speedway Corp., the Speedway's parent company, ordered the iconic race course repaved after a pothole developed between Turns 1 and 2 during February's Daytona 500.

The race was delayed twice for track repair.

The project started July 5, or two days following the Coke Zero 400, and has a completion date of Jan. 1, 2011.

Primary contractor Lane Construction has the required four layers of asphalt applied from the middle of the backstretch through Turns 3 and 4 and the tri-oval area. The Turn 1 and 2 area is now under construction.

Crews began reinstalling the steel and foam energy-reduction barriers and catch fence last week in the tri-oval and west banking, which makes it that the massive project is ahead of schedule.

But Chitwood said that is not the case. He said the Speedway is not in position to book test dates.

"It is way too premature to guess when we will have the track ready," he said. "Jan. 1 is still the stated completion date. There's no way to request any dates until we are much farther along on the construction process."

On deck this week for Lane Construction is adding a second layer of asphalt to Turns 1 and 2, plus laying down the first pass of blacktop on the reconfigured pit road area.

Bill Braniff is senior director of construction at North American Testing Co., a subsidiary of ISC, which owns DIS and 12 other major racing facilities in North America.

Braniff reported last week there was still much to finish before race cars can attack the 31-degree high banks.

"Now, we're doing what we call our 'punch list,' or a list of little stuff that we need to tighten up," Braniff said of Turns 3 and 4 and tri-oval areas. "You got to do a little this and a little of that.

"You got to get everything back up, then you have to start screwing it down tight. You'll see people doing that sort of work next week."